The Candleverse
The Candleverse is a nickname given to a manufactured solar system created when we had reached the level of a type III civilization. The solar system was made almost purely for fun, with various planets made almost entirely out of one material or a group of materials. Candelus, third from it's parent star, is made almost entirely out of wax, dotted with caverns filled with candles. These candles are made by machines called 'Chandler boxes'. They shave wax off the cavern walls and floors, building the caverns. Other than wax, there are some molecules and elements such as water, carbon dioxide, and the non-metals, with the planet being about 7% metals scattered randomly throughout. These chandler boxes were designed to to be self-sustainable and make candles for humanity, but strangely enough, an entire galactic arm of people thought this was wasteful and started a civil war. Other than some generation pods sent to the Andromeda, mankind drove itself to extinction shortly after... The portal to Candleus, no longer being maintained, started glitching out. Eventually, it's random periods of functionality reverted to earth, but at the oddest time intervals. It went back in time to bring plants, animals, and fungi associated with the making of a candle or being burned by a candle on Earth, and to the exact periods at when they were first implemented, but at a much slower time speed. For every day in earth history, a hundred years passed. Since true candles have been around since about 3000 B.C. starting in ancient Egypt and before that they made false candles, that gives about 190 million years in the timeline of life here. The teleported lifeforms will have plenty of time to evolve... Candle Types Because there are no longer any humans to pickup the transports, the chandler boxes started piling them up. Some interesting trends appear in abundance and arrangement of candles. Candle Species Pillar: These are some of the most diverse and widespread candles throughout Candelus. They appear together in large groups called 'pillar seas', packed together like a honeycomb in rolling hills of wax. Pillar candles are usually around 5 to 15 cm wide, but the absolute maximum and minimum sizes ever found are 0.9 cm and 1.4 m. However, there's much less limit on the height of these candles. Although the minimum height is a few cm, there's almost no limit on absolute height. Pillar candles can and have made mountains. One particular mountain actually began liquefying at it's base from the pressure because of how proportionally thin it was. Tealight: These appear in square pyramids from a foot high to the size of real pyramids. These are rarer than other candles, for the chandler boxes don't encounter metal very often. Remember those odd candle holders? Tablet: Thought to be a glitch in the chandler boxes' programming for pillar candles caused by scented wax. Rarely exceed a few inches and almost always have more than one wick. Only a few exceptions have been found that aren't made out of scented wax, leading to previous said theory. Dipped: One of the oldest candle types, they appear in groups of knolls jutting out of the ground. Container: Almost as rare as specialty candles due to the rarity of glass, they're usually found in small groups far apart, but larger groups have been found. Rolled: Rolled candles are simply bendy sheets of wax wrapped around a candle wick. These appear in small, linear groups called "Rolled Ranges". Specialty: Remember that flower-shaped candle you once got? Or perhaps a moon-shaped candle, or even a block with colored wax on the side commemorating an event? These candles are like that, except in every 3-dimensional shape imaginable. They are the rarest of all candle species, for chandler boxes take forever to finish them. They are usually found in secluded, hard-to-reach areas. Floating: These are rarer, only able to be made out of light waxes. They appear in ponds, floating like warm lilypads. A particularly ambitious group of chandler boxes have constructed an entire ship out of wax and put a wick down the main mast to sastify their generator. They sail around the world, looking for different wax types and chart the world by wax type. However, this crew of boxes closely guards the chart, so it's never been seen by humans. Cube: Pretty straightfoward, don't you think? Appear in messed up in groups called "Cube-yards". Surface: These candles are what happens when a chandler box unit gets tired of making normal candles and it doesn't want to devote the time to a specialty candle. It inserts wicks into the ground in mass proportions and lines them up to one wick. The result? Light the one wick, and you get a slow chain reaction, burning into the ground itself, creating a landscape like the Colorado Highland. It's almost like explosive mining, except much less destructive. Birthday: These are miniature pillar candles that are often colored. They're made when a chandler box just gets sick of candle making for a while. They're found tightly packed in regions called 'Inferno Plains', due to the fact that when one catches fire, the entire plain tends to follow suit. Waxes All but a few of these materials come in either scented or unscented. What the scents are in particular are up to chance. They usually smell like minerals though. These materials are found in tectonic plates that act similar to those on Earth, sliding under each other based on density of wax the terrane is made of. However, due to the higher diversity of materials the plates are made of compared to the two crust types on Earth, things are much more complicated. Tarrow: Beeswax: Spermaceti: The Spermaceti Island Chain are a relatively recent volcanic chain created by a hot spot. Their composition is not of the plate surrounding them, but instead of spermaceti, a wax made from sperm whale oil, now discontinued on Earth. Soy: Gel: Stearin: Paraffin: Bayberry: Ancient, the Bayberry plate is the last of its kind. It's current condition is similar to that of the Nazca plate on Earth, sliding under a lighter plate, except this plate has some land on it. Two major islands and some smaller ones make up the total landmass of Cuba and Iceland combined. Palm: Microcrystalline: Polyethylene: The First Ones The first candles ever made were made of melted animal fat, made from sheep and cattle. Cores of papyrus reeds were soaked in this fat. Not a true candle, but close enough. Our first plants and herbivores! They're lucky that the teleportation area is on organic wax ground. Still, with a lack of minerals for the papyrus reeds, the initial die off is inevitable. One third of the papyrus reeds survive, and that means even fewer sheep and cows survive. The cows are too big to maintain a sustainable population and become extinct. The smaller and more resilient sheep however manage to keep a few small herds alive. 1 Mya(years ahead) Papyrus grow in and next to freshwater to brackish water, which happen to be the only types of water due to lack of salts, but wax is a poor substitute for soil. Some waxes don't even support them, being artificial. That means that the papyrus reeds with less need for minerals and nutrients along with more resilient rhizomes are most likely to survive, and even then they're picky. For example, they naturally prefer shallow water. This will disappear after a while, but for now, it greatly limits the growing areas. Sheep evolve longer legs and broader hooves so they're able to trek through the wax deserts to oases and tread through water. No longer under domestication, they begin to evolve horns like those of big horn sheep, but smaller so they're easier to carry. Their wool thins and darkens to protect them from the heat while avoiding UV exposure. They evolved into the Eremusovii, translating to 'wasteland sheep'. (what banthas should have been...) The papyrus reeds respond by some growing further out in the water, becoming taller to avoid the reach of the sheep, and hardening their leaf scales to make them unappealing. Others start growing real leaves to photosynthesize with. Wind pollination is vital to their survival. Some species become fully aquatic, their rhizome serving as a raft. The Papyruseceae had been born, and with them, the start of the race to evolve. 5 Mya The Egyptians make the first true candles out of beeswax from Egyptian honey bees. Here come the pollinators. By now, the sheep and the papyrus have tried to colonize several continents. One was mostly made out of paraffin wax and more polar(death trap), and the other one out of gel and more temperate(awkward to walk on and inorganic). They were stuck on the first one, made out of beeswax and more tropical. Once the bees arrived on the beeswax continent, the colonies gained the ability to become massive fast. The only thing that held them back was the papyruseceae, and the plants became accustomed to the new pollinators quickly. There was a bit of a die-off at first, since all the bees could harvest was pollen from tiny flowers, but then bigger and more elaborate flowers started growing on the papyrus, along with nectar. Fruits started growing on the papyrus, a treat the Eremusovii couldn't resist. Some species evolved to become smaller with better climbing hooves so that they could climb up the papyrus trees to more easily get at the fruit. Ecosystems were becoming larger and more complex, but the continents were still mostly desert. But since bacteria are everywhere and therefore likely for at least some of them to get burned, some alkane degraders have been whittling away at the inorganic continents. Category:Fantasy Category:Candleverse